Lent Reflection: Focusing on Work and Rest

Lent Reflection: Focusing on Work and Rest February 16, 2013

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This year for Lent I am focusing on work and rest.

Last year, I focused on fear. Yes, they are connected.

I tend to work most of the time. Even now, as I include regular time for silence, for reflection, for listening to the Sacred around me in my days, I work most of the time.

I am good at disguising my work as rest. I spend time with people for work while we get together for coffee, or craft brews, and it looks like we are relaxing. I take a walk to clear my head or work out an idea, and it looks like I am taking a break.

I have several advantages in camouflaging work as rest. I live in a place where I can work outdoors almost every day, and it is easy to get people to believe that it is rest. I can work almost anywhere, which blurs the boundary between work and rest. I do not wear particular clothes or use much special equipment, which allows me to work without appearing to be working.

I love my work, and I work hard. Achieving and focus are both among my strongest strengths. In addition, though, fear motivates me. My underlying assumption is that if something is not going well, it is because I am not working enough.

It can be a challenge for me to rest without working. I am more adept at making work more enjoyable. I look for ways to find the connections between leadership, pilgrimage, and revelry.

Even as I practice reflection and become more deeply contemplative, I struggle to find my balance that encompasses contemplation and action. I yearn for the place of balance and rest.

How do you create space to be renewed and refreshed?

What is your balance of contemplation and action?

[Image by Ed Yourdon]


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